Posted!

Join the Conversation

Comments

Welcome to our new and improved comments, which are for subscribers only.
This is a test to see whether we can improve the experience for you.
You do not need a Facebook profile to participate.

You will need to register before adding a comment.
Typed comments will be lost if you are not logged in.

Please be polite.
It's OK to disagree with someone's ideas, but personal attacks, insults, threats, hate speech, advocating violence and other violations can result in a ban.
If you see comments in violation of our community guidelines, please report them.

Circuit Judge Sibley Reynolds denied his application for youthful offender status. The designation is open to people under the age of 21 who are charged with non-violent crimes. If granted, the status would seal the defendant’s record and the maximum punishment would be three years in prison.

Attempted murder is a Class A felony, with a punishment range of 10 to 99 year to life in prison. Nelson has pleaded not guilty to the charges in Autauga County. His attorney, D. Wayne Perdue, told Reynolds he hopes the Autauga charges will be handled along with the charges Bell faces in Elmore County.

He faces a similar list of indictments in Elmore County, including attempted murder, shooting into an occupied vehicle and receiving stolen property, courthouse records in Wetumpka show.

Bell was in the Elmore County Jail Monday morning on bonds totaling $140,000 for the Elmore and Autauga County indictments. He has remained in the Elmore County lockup since his arrest in August of 2014. He could not be reached for comment. His attorney on the Elmore County charges, Kenny James of Wetumpka, did not return phone calls seeking comment for this story.

The charges came about in connection with a high speed chase that occurred Aug. 15, 2014. An Alabama State Trooper attempted to pull Bell over on I-65 in Elmore County for going 91 miles per hour and a 70 m.p.h. zone, said Sgt. Steve Jarrett, a spokesman for the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency.

Bell did not pull over and the resulting high speed chase grew to include other troopers and officers from surrounding agencies, court records read. Bell allegedly fired several shots at the pursuing trooper during the chase, the indictments read.

An assisting trooper deployed spike strips which flattened Bell’s tires ending the pursuit in Autauga County. Bell then fled on foot but was captured in short order, courthouse records show. Bell and responding officers were uninjured in the incident, Jarrett said.

Bell faces charges in both counties because the crimes are being treated separately, said District Attorney Randall Houston.

“Since the chase began in Elmore County and ended in Autauga County, we feel the crimes are separate,” Houston said this past August, after the Autauga County Grand Jury indicted Bell. “But we will go where the evidence takes us. If the evidence shows that the incidents were part of a continuing criminal enterprise, jeopardy precludes us from trying Bell in both counties.

“In that case, we will try him in whatever county the case comes up in first.”